Mountains cradle the Diamond G Ranch in northwest Wyoming. A long dirt road winds from a two-lane highway into the ranch where cows graze in the summer and elk wander during the winter.
A two-story barn towers over stables and a few nearby houses. It feels safe, protected by the snowcapped mountains that stand guard in the distance.
But over those peaks almost 20 years ago came a threat for which Jon and Debbie Robinett couldn’t prepare.
About a year after gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, they arrived at the ranch. The great canines sowed destruction, killing 61 calves in a herd of 800. Sometimes the carcasses were found in mangled pieces. Other times they simply disappeared.
Jon keeps envelopes of photos to document the carnage. One day in November, standing in his kitchen wearing a white and tan button-down shirt tucked into dark blue Wranglers, he flipped through the pictures.
One shows a horse that had been dead for 36 hours. Another is a calf taken down 200 yards from the house.
“This is a yearling heifer the wolves killed. A sow and cubs came down to eat it and the wolves killed the cubs,” said Jon.
In two decades, the Robinetts have lost hundreds of cows and calves, five horses, seven dogs and an 11-day-old painted colt to wolves.
“We learned real early on to start documenting, taking pictures,” said Debbie. “Sometimes it’s really hard to do, like with my dogs, to take pictures of dead dogs. But you had to do it; if you didn’t have the proof, it didn’t work.”
But mixed in that stack of pictures, and on Debbie’s computer where she keeps digital images, are thousands of photos of wolves themselves.
The couple describes them with equal emotion.
“This was Paul, caught in a trap,” Jon said, looking at a picture of a black wolf he’d named. “We caught him when he was a pup in August. He weighed 42 pounds and we caught him again in November and he weighed 90 pounds.”
“We used to go out and count the pups — well, we still do — to see how many pups they have. There are five here. They’re real unique animals, even at a young age.”
The Robinetts’ relationship with wolves in some ways encapsulates the journey followed by Wyoming’s ranchers, conservationists, hunters, politicians and recreationists in the last 20 years.
Those relationships have, at times, been filled with frustration, anger, sadness and awe. Jon was involved in one of the first lawsuits filed against the federal government after wolves were reintroduced. Debbie bought wolf hunting licenses. But they also spend hours roaming the mountains, hoping to catch glimpses of the large canines.
Some of the raw emotion associated with the animals following their reintroduction has abated in recent years, though bumper stickers calling wolves government-sponsored terrorists or telling people to shoot, shovel and shut up are not uncommon. Wolf management meetings that once drew hundreds now may bring only a handful.
Jon wanted to work with the carnivores from the beginning. He believed that humans and wolves could coexist. Some early wolf opponents are beginning to find a middle ground, too.
One drainage over from the Robinetts, fellow Dubois-area rancher Reg Phillips is building a similar tolerance for the hungry carnivores as long as wolves are managed and ranchers are paid for livestock kills.
“I like wildlife, I love looking at big elk and deer, and I like seeing grizzlies,” Phillips said. “Wolves, they’re big and neat. But they’re also big and meat eaters. If they would manage wolves, I’d be able to accept a little larceny, a little death loss.”...
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